Sunday Gravy with yeah right: Food Science! Calzone VS Stromboli. Who Ya Got?

Greetings Gravy Heads and welcome back!

You tuned in to a good episode if you’re new around here. We’ve got a two-for-one deal going today.

Try as I might I still haven’t been able to fully convey how my thought processes lead to an episode of Sunday Gravy. Fuck man, I can’t explain how my thought processes allow me to put on a goddamn pair of socks much less come up with a topic and build a full meal around it.

Actually we’ve got 2 completely unique, yet quite similar, foods we will be fucking with today.

Todays lesson is the difference between, and the similarities of, the calzone and the stromboli.

Hopefully everyone out there has had the chance to try both items. I’m sure most everyone has tried the calzone but maybe some of you haven’t sampled its close yet still distant cousin, the stromboli.

The calzone is definitely Italian in origin and can easily be found in Italy and most pizza joints in the US.

The Stromboli, in theory, was invented in South Philadelphia and was actually made as more of a sandwich in it’s origin. In fact there are strombolis made with an Italian bread roll instead pizza dough. It is often easier to find the stromboli in an Italian sandwich place rather than a pizza place but they can be found in either.

I’m gonna let Bonappetit give you the tale of the tape on the ingredients:

“There’s a lot of crossover in the filling category. Ingredients like cured meats, vegetables, and herbs can be used in both calzones and stromboli, but there are two things that set them apart. Calzones use ricotta cheese, and stromboli does not. Stromboli is made with mozzarella cheese (preferably low-moisture) to keep moisture at a minimum. This helps the interior dough cook fully. Calzones usually use a blend of cheese that almost always incorporates ricotta.

And then there’s sauce. Calzones never have tomato sauce inside the dough. They’re always dipped. While stromboli is also dip-able, it’s totally cool to put some sauce inside stromboli, pre-roll.”

The best way to describe it for me is the calzone is more closely associated with a pizza while the stromboli is closer to an Italian style sandwich that’s been baked.

Shape-wise think of it this way; the calzone is folded similar to a taco and the stromboli is rolled up similar to a burrito.

They are both delicious but we’re going to give each one a full test-drive and hopefully come up with a winner. I have an affinity for one more than the other but I’ve had fantastic versions of both and have zero issues being served either one.

Plus I had to make the ultimate sacrifice and eat a calzone on Saturday followed by a stromboli on Sunday.

See the commitment I make to you people!

Just a couple of simple bass-lines before we get started. The dough is the exact dough that I use for my flatbread pizzas.

While the sauce for both items is my mother sauce. This was actually the inspiration for the episode now that I think about it. Without getting too maudlin, this is the leftover sauce from Easter when I was initially cooking for my whole family but well, the sauce and pasta were already made the day my ex-wife passed away. The rest of my family was very correctly diverted to visit her in the hospital.

I had a small dinner by myself and froze the rest that day and here we are.

Anyway.

On the first day – we made a calzone.

Follow along as we do this pictorial-style.

Let’s do this shit.

First important tip!

Preheat your pizza stone in a 450 degree oven.

Next we make the dough.

Stolen directly from that flatbread post: 

Flatbread/Pizza dough!

“1 package of active dried yeast.

2/3 cup of lukewarm water – no need to be precise on temperature since we don’t want a big rise.

2 cups of all purpose flour.

1 teaspoon of baking powder.

3/4 teaspoon of salt.

2 tablespoons of olive oil.

1 tablespoon of honey.

In a small bowl add the yeast to the water and stir until the yeast dissolves.

Next grab a bigger bowl and mix together the flour, salt and baking powder.

Add the water and dissolved yeast to the mixed dry ingredients then add in the olive oil and the honey and mix together.

Using just your hands, mix everything together.”

The dough is going to rest for 30 minutes.

Place on a floured surface.

Be sure to put aside half of the dough for tomorrow.

Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate the other dough overnight.

My choice for the calzone filling is also my go-to pizza order. Gimme the pepperoni, sausage and mushroom please.

First ingredient for our calzone will be the mushrooms. We’ll sauté them a bit first to cook them down and to allow them to absorb some seasonings.

Season them up a bit. I added some salt, pepper and a quick shake of dried basil. Cook down for 5 minutes or so.

Next step is a splash of vino. As always use what you drink. In fact this bottle died a good soldier before the night was over.

Next yez t’row in yer gahlic. Minced please.

Cook them down just a bit more, maybe a minute.

That looks good.

Take note: We want to make sure our calzone ingredients aren’t cold when we build our calzone so warm up the sausages a bit. I just tossed them into the warm pan with the mushrooms to take the chill off of them.

Time to roll out the dough. For the calzone we’ll try to roll the dough out in a circle.

Well shit. More like circle-ish. Fuck it, this will work.

Next you got your sausages and mushrooms.

Then add your pepperoni. The cool thing is you decide how much you want to add.

Since we are making the calzone we will indeed be using ricotta. Use the good shit. This stuff is only available once in awhile at my grocery store so I was happy to see it on hand when I made this. It’s fantastic and not too wet. A common issue with a lot of basic ricotta cheese. 

At this point you could crack an egg and mix in with the ricotta. You could also add some salt, pepper and nutmeg to season but this shit is real good on its own.

Now just a bit of mozzarella. A couple of chunks of fresh mozzarella will do nicely.

Fold it over and crimp the edges. At this point I basted the top with some extra virgin olive oil.

Not too goddamn bad for a first effort over here. Make sure to cut a couple of slits to allow the air to vent while the calzone cooks.

Into the well pre-heated oven for a good 12-15 minutes. Until nicely browned. Serve with a side of marinara.

Let’s give a slice and take a look at the inside.

Well then. Sky’s the limit as far as choice of ingredients go. These babies were made for customization.

Next day it’s-a-stromboli time.

Roll out the remaining half ball of dough.

Now, even though the results of the dough rolling look kind of the same as the calzone I tried to roll this into more of a rectangle, thus allowing easier stromboli folding.

Then we add in the fillings. Be generous this time. What I did here is I layered a big scoop of sauce on there, it’s right underneath the pepperonis. There is also some cut up sausage chunks in there. Also, please take note of the ham. That’s a deli-bought Black Forest ham because I really like the salt level of it.

So it was pepperoni, sausage, mushroom for the calzone and this is pepperoni, sausage, ham with a good ladle of sauce for the stromboli.

We’re gonna cheese up this motherfucker today! Lots of fresh mozzarella. If you like add on some grates of fresh parmesan.

Roll it up like a big burrito. Tuck in those edges real good.

Hot damn! We’re getting the hang of this shit!

Just like the calzone we’re going to give it a couple of slits to help the stromboli vent during its cooking time in the oven.

Today we will baste with an egg wash instead of just olive oil.

To finish we’re going to grate some fresh parm over the top.

Into the preheated 450 degree oven for about 15 minutes. It may take a minute or two longer than the calzone because it’s got just a bit more heft.

Remove from the oven when browned.

Oh fucking shit dude! That looks exactly like a fucking stromboli. Look at the cheese oozing out.

Let’s see what this one looks like inside.

Touchdown!

We go to the judges.

For the calzone; it was prepared very nicely but I made the rookie mistake of putting in too few fillings.

I know! Something I personally made needed more filling? 

[hangs head]

The flavor was delicious but the dough of the crimped edge was a little too dense. The rest of the dough was flawless but it seemed to toughen up where I crimped it together.

When dipping the calzone into the marinara it tasted exactly right.

I can and will make this again with the proper balance of dough to filling.

On a scale of 1-10 I give this a 7.5.

Stromboli judging time.

Fuck right off!

That’s all you really need to know.

It. Was. Fucking. AWESOME!

Perfect amount of fillings. The way the cheese and sauce incorporated and just got all juicy/melty and mixed with the meats inside.

God DAMN!

I forgot how amazing the sausage, ham, pepperoni balance is. Then the crispy, perfectly cooked dough/wrapper with the grated parm on top.

Flawless victory!

Scale of 1-10…. 9.99999 out of ten.

Given the choice? Make the fucking stromboli folks. Trust me.

The science checks out too because my memory has told me for years that if a restaurant has both a calzone and a stromboli on the menu, order the stromboli.

This was one fun-filled delicious weekend of experimentation I put in.

Just writing this and looking at that stromboli again makes me want one RIGHT NOW!

Damn it was delicious.

That’s a recipe packed Sunday Gravy if I do say so myself.

Happy Fathers Day to you Dads out there. Enjoy the family and hopefully you get to relax today.

Let’s do this again next week OK?

Always a pleasure.

Be safe and be well everyone.

See you next time.

PEACE!